Donald Trump To Undo Obama-era Anti-Fracking Regulations

That which is done by the pen and the phone can be undone by the pen and the phone. President Barack Obama’s partisans are quickly finding this out.

According to The Hill, President Donald Trump is about to repeal his latest piece of Obama-era unilateral policy, this time in the field of energy. On Wednesday, Trump’s Department of Justice notified the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals that it would no longer be defending Obama’s regulations on hydraulic fracking on federal land.

The oil and gas industry had been fighting the regulations in court. By no longer defending the controversial regulations on the oil-extraction procedure, the Trump administration is essentially abandoning them.

This wasn’t the first set of environmental regulations that the Trump administration has gone after, either. Obama’s Clean Water Rule — which could have placed even small bodies of water like creeks under federal control — was being reevaluated by the EPA, thanks to an order from Trump.

The president will also be going after Obama’s Clean Power Plan and a moratorium on leasing federal land for coal mining, in addition to a number of other environmental and energy policies implemented under the previous administration.

A 2015 study by Louisiana State University said that opening up federal lands to oil, gas and coal exploration could add $20.7 trillion in economic activity and create 2.7 million jobs.

A vice president for energy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce told The Daily Caller that this was just part of draining the swamp.

“Trump is clearing out the political shenanigans from the Obama administration,” Christopher Guith said. “Regulatory kudzu such as the EPA Methane Rule, the Clean Power Plan, the Waters of The United States, and the last minute monument designations are certainly being reviewed right now. The previous administration just threw everything they could at the wall to cater to their environmentalist base after Trump won the election.”

Guith also took aim at Obama’s approach to energy production.

“Even if it meant an advantage for the economy, the trade deficit, or U.S. jobs the Obama administration took steps to keep-it-in-the-ground,” he said. “Under Trump we at least have an energy policy that is conducive to job creation and ultimately American competitiveness.”

Poor Obama. Now that the phone has run out of battery and the pen has run out of ink, his legacy seems certain to join them in the dustbin of irrelevance.